James Holmes: Arlene Holmes explains her thickhead’ son as Romney excuses murder
JAMES Holmes: The alleged mass murderer has appeared in a courtroom in Centennial, Colorado. Holmes was told that he is to be charged with first degree murder for shooting dead 12 people in a cinema. He also allegedly shot 58 others in Aurora at the midnight screening of the Batman film,The Dark Knight Rises.
What else do we know? The media rounds-up:
How did he look in court?
The Times:
With orange hair and wearing a red prison jumpsuit , Holmes sat quietly and glum-faced, opening and closing his eyes repeatedly in a bizarre fashion.
James Holmes made his first public appearance as an alleged killer on Monday, shambling into a Colorado courtroom with a bearing more like that of a teenage delinquent than the comic-book supervillain he reportedly fancied himself to be.
Daily Mail:
Despondent: Holmes, who dyed his hair to appear like Batman’s nemesis The Joker, looks down in court
Despondent? Others saw only lethargy. The Mail alone spots emotion.
The Sun:
WILD eyed and unshaven, deranged “Joker” killer James Holmes faced the public for the first time in court yesterday
Despondent and wild eyed?
WLTZ:
24-year-old James Holmes sat quietly in court Monday morning, hair died orangish-red, showing no emotion.
Holmes has just been escorted out of the courtroom. Everyone was fixated on his expression – a combination of mournful and oblivious. He head rolled and he seemed to have little idea of where he was or what was happening. Is he traumatised or is it some sort of medication?
What about his family?
ABC gets it wrong?
Arlene Holmes, the mother of Colorado theater shooting suspect James Holmes, has suggested that ABC News mischaracterized her when it reported that her initial statement to the reporter, “you have the right person,” was a reference to her son.
“This statement is to clarify a statement made by ABC media. I was awakened by a call from a reporter by ABC on July 20 about 5:45 in the morning. I did not know anything about a shooting in Aurora at that time,” Holmes said in a statement this afternoon, read to the national press by attorney Lisa Damiani. “He asked if I was Arlene Holmes and if my son was James Holmes who lives in Aurora, Colorado. I answered yes, you have the right person. I was referring to myself.”
“I asked him to tell me why he was calling and he told me about a shooting in Aurora,” she continues. “He asked for a comment. I told him I could not comment because I did not know if the person he was talking about was my son, and I would need to find out.”
ABC News stands by its original story. No, not that one that Holmes was in the Tea Party. The other one, about the Holmes family standing by their son:
[ABC News reporter Matthew] Mosk said today that he awoke Arlene Holmes and informed her that a man, he believed was her son had been arrested in Aurora and asked to confirm their relationship.
“You have to tell me what happened… You have to tell me what happened,” the woman on the phone said, according to Mosk. Mosk said he told her that ABC News had learned the 24-year-old had been identified by police as the lone suspect in the mass killing in Aurora, Colo and that the details of the events were still taking shape.
“You have the right person,” was her response, he said. “I need to call the police. I need to fly to Colorado.”
Just prior to the press conference, Damiani contacted ABC News to determine whether there existed a recording of the pre-dawn conversation between Mosk and her client, according to Mosk.
One hour after learning there was no audio recording, Damiani held the conference and read Arlene Holmes’ statement.
What’s the alleged mass murdered really like?
One of Holmes’ high school classmates, Breanna Hath, said he had a small group of friends who played video games and were “a little nerdy. He was really shy, really quiet, but really nice and sweet,” Hath told The New York Times.
John Jacobson helped guide Holmes during a 2006 summer internship at the University of California’s prestigious Salk Institute in San Diego and said the suspected gunman in the Colorado movie theater massacre was thickheaded, uncommunicative and irresponsible.
“He should not have gotten into the summer program,” Jacobson, 37, told the Los Angeles Times. “His grades were mediocre. I’ve heard him described as brilliant. This is extremely inaccurate.”
An expert says:
I think when the combination of things happen, when you have someone who is a loner, who has very few connections with people, who is very bright, clever, creative, I think you can get immersed in a fantasy culture,” Dr. Michael Burgan says.
An expert tells ABC:
Dr. Marisa Randazzo, a psychologist who studies targeted violence, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that, surprisingly, a clean criminal record is not uncommon for people who commit acts of mass violence.
“In most of these cases, these are not what you would call a psychopath or a sociopath, as hard as it may be to believe,” Randazzo said. “These are often folks who often up onto this point have been functioning fairly normally but went through a series of events, a series of losses, ended up in absolute despair or desperation.”
Shortly after the press conference Jordan Ghawi, brother of Jessica who was shot dead on Friday explained why he had not attended the hearing.
“This guy’s already had his 10 minutes of fame and I don’t need to see the face of the man who’s taken my sister’s life,” he told CNN.
He said he believed Holmes’ dazed demeanor in court was faked. “I don’t believe for a second that he’s sitting there with his wide eyes and pretending to be incoherent.
“He knows what he’s doing.”
“Our challenge is not the laws, our challenge is people who, obviously, are distracted from reality and do unthinkable, unimaginable, inexplicable things,” Romney said.
So. Holmes did not know what he’s doing?
Dr Joan Neff, a criminologist from the University of Virginia, said his behaviour in court was consistent with someone who was suffering from a mental illness, like schizophrenia.
She said this would also explain why he dropped out of his PhD.
“We know that certain types of psychoses tend to have an onset in the early 20s; if that’s the case he may be in the midst of coping with that. He may not know what’s going on,” she said.
Are guns the answer?
The loss of life could have been reduced dramatically in this horrific incident if only one person carrying a gun would have used it to stop James Holmes early in this massacre
The Drugs?
Fact: Aurora alleged gunman James Eagan Holmes was found in possession of Vicodin, a drug prescribed for pain, when police arrested him outside the Century Theatre.
More facts to follow…
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Eyewitness Chandler Brannon, 25, sits outside Gateway High School where witnesses were brought for questioning after a shooting at a movie theater showing the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises," Friday, July 20, 2012 in Aurora. A gunman wearing a gas mask set off an unknown gas and fired into the crowded movie theater killing 12 people and injuring at least 50 others, authorities said. (AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)
Posted: 24th, July 2012 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
